How do I backup Wordpress files?

I want to upgrade Wordpress and I've been reading that I need to backup my Wordpress files before I do that. How do I backup my Wordpress files? I thought I could do this in my web panel, but I can't for the life of me figure out what to do.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Read the Wiki on backups:
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Backups

p.s. It can't be done in the panel. DreamHost only provides automated internal backups. Yes, they're available to you, but if DreamHost crashes and burns, you'll be out of luck.

-Scott

Thank you, Scott. I have read through some of the info you recommended. It seems that I need to use an ftp client so I downloaded firefptp since I'm using Firefox. In looking through the documentation for fireftp I'm not sure if this allows me to backup my files. I can see that I can transfer files which is what an ftp is for. Can I transfer from the server to my computer, and that is the backup? If I had to transfer the files from my computer to the server in the first place, don't I already have the files and so why do I need to do a backup?

Patricia

Go here and get a plugin for WP that allows you to backup just the database. Or, you can get a backup from the control panel of all of your databases.

The FTP or SSH into your space, go to the root directory for your blog, then get a copy of wp-config.php and your .htaccess. (For details on using these tools you should check tutorial websites.)

Then go to /wp-content/plugins/ and copy everything there.

That should cover everything you need. If you need to restore, install WP from scratch ( same release if at all possible using a zip from your PC ), then restore the database and tables, then copy the files back. You may also need to remove an install.php.

Want to do some disaster planning? Schedule downtime, backup everything, rename the blog primary directory, then attempt a complete restore. If you don't succeed, just delete the mess, rename the original blog back, and restore the database.

HTH

Yes, patricia. If you transfer the files that would be considered a backup. I'd also backup the database. That's very important. You can do this by going into phpmyadmin and using the export feature. Backing up your files is pretty easy-just time-consuming if you have a lot.

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